In Freedom's Cause : a Story of Wallace and Bruce eBook

Three hours before daybreak a party of fifty picked
men assembled at the castle, for this force was deemed
to be ample. The two men who had escaped from
the attack on the previous day led the way to the
ravine, and there Red Roy became the guide and led
the band far up the hillside. Had it been possible
they would have surrounded the cave before daylight,
but Roy said that it was so long since he had first
found the cave, that he could not lead them there
in the dark, but would need daylight to enable him
to recognize the surroundings. Even when daylight
came he was for some time at fault, but he at last
pointed to a clump of bushes, growing on a broken
and precipitous face of rock, as the place where the
cave was situated.

Red Roy was right in his conjecture. Archie had
once, when wandering among the hills, shot at a wild
cat and wounded it, and had followed it to the cave
to which it had fled, and seeing it an advantageous
place of concealment had, when he determined to harry
the district of the Kerrs, fixed upon it as the hiding
place for his band. Deeming it possible, however,
that its existence might be known to others, he always
placed a sentry on watch; and on the approach of the
Kerrs, Cluny Campbell, who happened to be on guard,
ran in and roused the band with the news that the
Kerrs were below. Archie immediately crept out
and reconnoitred them; from the bushes he could see
that his foes were for the present at fault.
Sir John himself was standing apart from the rest,
with Red Roy, who was narrowly scrutinizing the face
of the cliff, and Archie guessed at once that they
were aware of the existence of the cavern, though
at present they could not determine the exact spot
where it was situated. It was too late to retreat
now, for the face of the hill was too steep to climb
to its crest, and their retreat below was cut off by
the Kerrs. He therefore returned to the cave,
leaving Cluny on guard.

“They are not sure as to the situation of the
cave yet,” he said, “but they will find
it. We can hold the mouth against them for any
time, but they might smoke us out, that is our real
danger; or if they fail in that, they may try starvation.
Do half a dozen of you take brands at once from the
embers and explore all the windings behind us; they
are so narrow and low that hitherto we have not deemed
it worth while to examine them, but now they are really
our only hope; some of them may lead round to the
face of the hill, and in that case we may find some
way by which we may circumvent the Kerrs.”

Six of the lads at once started with flaming pine
knots, while Archie returned to the entrance.
Just as he took his place there he saw Red Roy pointing
towards the bushes. A minute or two later Sir
John and his followers began to advance. Archie
now called out the rest of his band, who silently
took their places in the bushes beside him. Led
by Sir John and his personal retainers, the assailants
approached the foot of the rocks and began to make